


Crystallization

by Framlingem



Category: Discworld
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:02:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/pseuds/Framlingem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cheery Littlebottom eventually belongs somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crystallization

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redsnake05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redsnake05/gifts).



Cheery was not, he thought, a very good dwarf. As far as he could tell, gold had no practical use whatsoever - it was too soft for tools, didn't strengthen anything in an alloy, and didn't do anything interesting when she shaved small bits off of it and dunked them into solutions containing small bits of other metals. He admitted it had some use musically ("Potassium feldspar, potassium feldspar, potassium feldspar" just didn't have the same ring to it), but after a lifetime of trying to find variation on a theme, even Cheery had to admit it wasn't likely.

Gold was pretty enough, but it clashed with his ring mail.

Snorey understood, a little. He wrote letters home every week from the far-off mines he was helping to open up, and sent Cheery things when he could: embroidery thread, in every colour but gold; rocks with shells in them from an iron mine that extended out under the Rim Ocean; rocks that seemed made of nothing _but_ shells, from places which were nowhere neare the ocean. The stones were fascinating. They were nothing like the rocks of Überwald, which were heavy and black, studded with fat. The rocks from the Sto plains were white, and bubbled under the acid she spilled on them one day by accident while she was helping her father with some decorative etching. She tried it with several different rocks, sneaking into a sample room to see what happened. The last letter contained a Borogravian poster that had blown down a mineshaft. It had a Brave Borogravian Wife! who was sewing clothes for soldiers.

When the letters stopped coming, Cheery didn't mourn. Snorey had been dead for years, after all. Instead, Cheery spent months pushing a thick needle through sturdy leather, building a knockerman's uniform in secret. When he was done, he had a perfect set of leathers, made the same way they'd been made for millenia, strong and sturdy. He tore them apart looking for holes. There weren't any. That was all right, though. Knockermen were dead from the day they took up the sling and cage. Cheery was a dwarf of Überwald, and some things were understood. The only other option was to be stop being a dwarf of Überwald.

 

*****

"Hello?"  
"I'm down here."  
"Oh. Hello. Er, can I help you?"  
"Is this the Seamstresses' Guild?"  
"Yes. Um. You're a dwarf."  
"That's right."  
"We don't get many dwarfs."  
"Really?"  
"Yes. They don't tend to require our services."  
"Oh. No, that's fine, I don't need anything. I want to join."  
"You want to join? I don't think we've ever had a dwarf apprentice."  
"I know it's unusual, but I can do more than leather! I'm good with a needle! Look, I brought my own equipment."  
"Ah. Those are lovely scissors."  
"My father forged them."  
The young lady who'd answered the door leaned forward and whispered in Cheery's ear.  
"No! You mean... you... really?"  
"Yes."  
"You don't do... needlework?"  
"Not with the kind of needle you're thinking of, no. Listen --"  
" _What was that_?!"  
"That was the Alchemist's Guild. You've got a piece of it caught in your chainmail, look, just there."  
"Thanks, miss. What do they do?"  
"Alchemy. Lead into gold, that sort of thing. Hey, you're a dwarf!"  
"Yes, we covered that."  
"So you know about gold! Come on, I'll take you over. I'm, well, acquainted with the new guildmaster."  
"Er - no, really, that's fi - help?"

*****

Cheery was, he thought, quite a good alchemist. Etching acid was good for more than making rocks bubble, it turned out, and the alchemists even knew why the rocks bubbled. The Sto plains were covered by the sea, longer ago than Cheery could imagine, and the rocks were made of the bones and shells of animals and fish that weren't around anymore, except maybe as small gods worshipped by people who were tucked away in corners of the Disc more forgotten than the animals. When the alchemists told him, he went to the Guild library, found a map that wasn't being used to plug up the new hole in the west wall, and stared at the shape of the world. And the bones contained something called calcium carbonate, which reacted - all these words - to make the bubbles. He even got an afternoon off a week, and made friends with Kitti, the young lady who'd dragged him to the Alchemist's Guild. Kitti had beautiful clothes, soft and colourful. Her room had fluffy pillows. Cheery's room at the Guild was clean and neat, and, being designed for a human, had luxuriously high ceilings, but his bed was covered in plain white (well, grey, really, with a mysterious orange stain around a tiny hole in one corner, but they had _been_ white) sheets, and the pillow was thin. Cheery slept there, and dreamed of impractical shoes with feathers on.

It would have been nice, thought Cheery as he landed in the street and gazed blearily up at the smoke coming from the roof of the laboratory she'd been demonstrating something to the Council in, to have soft hands. He tilted his head back. There was a poster on the wall of the Gambler's Guild. It said, upside-down, "Thee Cittie Watch Wants YOU!!!" The thought meandered across his brain that being wanted would be almost as nice as soft hands. The picture on the poster was a disgruntled-looking blonde human woman, whose eyes spoke to the iconograph. They said: This had better be finished soon, because I've got proper police work to be on about, and you'd better focus up here, yes, that's right, higher, higher, yes, here's my face, close your mouth and take the bloody picture already.

Maybe he - maybe she could have both, thought Cheery.

******

 

"Hello?"  
"Good afternoon, Sergeant Littlebottom. How do you do?"  
"Afternoon. Um, come in. Careful, that desk's a bit wobbly and you don't want to spill that beaker on your shoes. Can't place your face, sorry. There was a bit of a scuffle yesterday, and Igor fixed me up a treat, but the table's not the only thing that's wobbly."  
"Willikins, Sergeant. I'm Lord and Lady Vimes' butler."  
"Oh! The Commander's butler! What can I do for you, sir?"  
"Just Willikins, Sergeant. I have a note from Lady Sybil for you."  
"Could you read it, please, s- Willikins? Only my hands are a bit of a mess. We took this man off of the river, and these clothes were covered in it."  
"Certainly, Sergeant. Her Grace requests your presence this afternoon at the Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons. She would like your assistance in a personal matter."  
"I'll have to clear it with the Comman -"

A voice called down the stairs. "There's no point in arguing with Sybil, Sergeant. Just have the report on that man's clothes on my desk in the morning, see if you can figure out where they're from. If we can narrow it down, I'll send Carrot and Angua round to talk to people, see if anyone knows the poor bugger. Is the carriage outside, Willikins?"  
"Indeed, sir."  
"Good. Cheery, clean up, hop in the carriage, and I'll expect you back here by six."  
"Yes, sir. Sir?"  
"Yes, Cheery?"  
"The clothes are Klatchian, sir."  
There was a pause.  
"Klatchian?"  
"Yes, sir. Their cloth's woven differently."  
"It is?"  
"Yes, sir."  
"Well, then, Carrot can visit Harga's while he's at it. Well done, Sergeant. Captain! A moment."

******

Cheery fidgeted briefly with the hem of her leather skirt before entering the the dragon pen. The Commander's missus was in the far corner with a shovel, removing something Cheery didn't want to think about too hard from the remains of a stall. Willikins made a small, polite noise and suddenly Cheery was left all alone with Her Grace, the Duchess of Ankh, who turned around briskly.  
"Sergeant Littlebottom! Just the, ah, young lady I was hoping for. Come this way, please."  
Cheery followed her through to a back room, where Her Grace was ungracefully removing a mass of leather and metal plates from a trunk.  
"I've had this - oof - had this brought in from Überwald. That nice Mr. Anvillson helped me with the metal bits, but I'm afraid I'm out of my depth when it comes to the leather. Sam told me your brother was a knockerman - I was so sorry to hear about his death - and that you had a talent for needlework as well as alchemy, and, well, I was hoping you could help me?"  
Cheery looked at her blankly. "Thank you, ma'am, but it was a long time ago. Er. Help with what, ma'am?"  
"With the dragons. With protective gear, to be precise. The poor dears are having a tough time of it this year, and with Young Sam now, I can't take the same risks as before. It would just be so lovely to have a suit of proper leather."  
"Oh! Yes, ma'am."  
"Cheery, after everything, I think you can call me Sybil."  
Cheery blushed a furious red, and employed the Vimes Technique For Dealing With One's Superiors, As Learned from Fred Colon; that is to say, she stared at a point over Lady Vimes's left shoulder and kept her sentences short. "Perhaps later, ma'am."  
"Come on, then. I'll have someone bring us some tea."  
Cheery smiled, under her beard. "Tea sounds lovely, ma'am."


End file.
